Pesky teens....

Here's an interesting idea, create a machine that emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away. The result was:

At first, members of the usual teen crowd tried to gather as normal, repeatedly going inside the store with their fingers in their ears and "begging me to turn it off," Mr. Gough said. But he held firm and neatly avoided possible aggressive confrontations: "I told them it was to keep birds away because of the bird flu epidemic."

"It's loud and squeaky and it just goes through you," said Jodie Evans, 15, who was shopping at the store even though she was supposed to be in school. "It gets inside you."

I'm looking for reasons to look forward to my 30th B'day :)

Calcutta and Ganguly

I need to say this once, the people at Calcutta should be ashamed of themselves for the way they behaved during the ODI at Eden Gardens. This is the Indian team, not the Bengal team and if you dont like the fact that your blue-eyed boy (Ganguly, just in case someone was wondering) is not in the team, suck it up... Petty politics that the BCCI propagates should not extend to the team, as Indians, support the damn team, you can always fight your battles off the pitch and elsewhere...

technorati tags: India cricket

Children are more susceptible to Malaria

Children should be the prime target of malaria control as they are ones most likely to be bitten by mosquitoes carrying the parasite (BBC News). Surprisingly, about 80% of all new malaria infections are concentrated in just a fifth of the population, a Nature study of African children found. The study also found that past infections does not confer any resistance. So, if you have had malaria, you are likely to get it again because of your susceptibility.

technorati tags: malaria

'Ten of us, we killed at least 22 tigers'

"Ten of us, we killed at least 22 tigers", reads the title. This story highlights how about half the tiger population at Ranthambore has been wiped out in the space of less than a year. What is scary about this is that Rantahmbore is a premier tiger reserve in the country and one that appears in most 'tiger documentaries' that are shown on the NG and Discovery channels. Apparently all that publicity and what was supposed to be one of the best kept reserves in the country has made no difference.

The plight of the tiger in India was also highlighted by its being wiped out of Sariska, this new report adds an increased sense of urgency to the situation. I'm lucky to have seen a tiger in the wild, I hope T is able to in his lifetime.

technorati tags: tiger conservation

TopGear Magazine in India

Top Gear has been one of my favourite TV shows, it was first shown in India sometime in the late-90's on BBC. I love cars and bikes, and dry brit humour, and TopGear is just the show to bring the two together. So, when TopGear was finally introduced as a mag in India, here was good reason to rejoice.

First, let me say that the mag has been everything I had expected and a wee bit more. Its full of splashy hig-res pics of cars (and uh...uh.. bikes) and well written reviews and articles with a good measure of wit and humour thrown in. About 80% of the mag is about 'phoren' stuff, and the rest comprises of reviews of current/future Indian autos. Some readers of the first issue had complained that it contains too many reviews of cars being sold outside the country, true, but the car industry in India is still in neonatal. So being told what you are missing is probably a good thing. They also have a really nice section at the end of the mag reviewing all the models sold in India with nice one-liners:

About the Maruti Suzuki Gypsy: A mountain goat off the road, but a pig on it: it's crude, rides like it's on gravel and safety is quite appalling. Save it for the farmhouse.

About the Mahindra Scorpio: "Dont be fooled by:" The steering wheel - it's not connected to anything.

About the Reva: "Alternate Drives:" Golf cart, bicycle, joining Greenpeace.

So, should you buy it? If you like cars and everything gas-guzzling, you have to. This issue was a steal as they had a best of TopGear DVD thrown in for free, yipeeee....

technorati tags: auto India top-gear

Walmart's faster

Its amazing how fast and well coordinated some companies are, even while responding to events such as natural disasters. This article details how Walmart was able to was able to move food, water, generators and other goods to areas hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita faster than the federal government.

What I find surprising about is the understanding and planning Walmart seems to have put into dealing with the aftermath of Katrina Rita. Maybe privatization does work, but then again, it all depends on who's taking over.

Flock

I had written a comparison between Opera and Firefox a long time ago, here's an update on the new (or at least future) king of the hill. Its Flock, a new browser that promises to change the ay your browse, or at the very least make you think again about your browsing habits. You will find reviews of Flock all over the web, here are a couple (1, 2). The download page at Flock has a big warning - "Sure you can handle it? Don't say we didn't warn ya'", go ahead ignore the warning and give it a try. I have had no trouble so far and I dont anticipate any.

What I can tell you is that its really good. If you use del.icio.us, Flickr and also blog using Blogspot, its probably the best thing around. A word of caution, it doesnt seem to work with other blogging sites for now and is probably pretty unstable, I just havent seen anything negative so far (WinXP SP2). Fun fun fun...